Genesis of Eden

Treading the Winepress
Yeshua and Dionysius

These pages are about the relationship between Yeshua and Dionysus and how the relationshipe between them holds a key to understanding the eucharist, the miracles, his strange relationship with the women and his status as the True Vine.

Fig 12.1: Christ squeezed in the wine-press distributing
his blood to the faithful 15th century
15th cent German manuscript (Jones 7)

12.1 Prologue:

Noah is the Hebrew Dionysian ancestor of the great flood, who
suffered the fate of castration at the hands of his son of Canaan:
Gen 9:20 "And Noah began to be an husbandman and he planted
a vineyard: And he drank of the wine, and was drunken; and he
was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan,
saw the nakedness of his father, . And Noah awoke from his wine,
and knew what his younger son had done unto him."

Jesus, who claimed to be the vine itself, suffered a simlar
fate at the hands of the Idumean Herod: John 15:1 "I am the
true vine, and my Father is the husbandman." Luke 23:11 "And
Herod with his men of war set him at nought, and mocked him, and
arrayed him in a gorgeous robe, and sent him again to Pilate."

The desert in which John the Baptist preached and baptised
lay on the border with Edom, the Nabataean kingdom, devoted husbandmen,
whose god Duchares the "Lord of the Winepress" of Isaiah
63, was a form of Dionysus.

12.2 The Bread of Heaven and the True Vine: Tammuz and Dionysus

The earliest and most ancient invocation to Jesus in Christianity
is believed to be "Jesus is Lord", and more specifically
"Come Lord Jesus." (Spong 1994 144)

In Elis a dancing chorus of women invoked the god with the
words: "Come, Lord Dionysus." He is described as "the
god who comes, the god of epiphany, whose appearance is far more
urgent, far more compelling than that of any other god."
(Otto).

There are many, many aspects of the enigma of Jesus, from his
epiphany on the Day of the festival of Dionysus, through the "true
vine", the Eucharist, his virgin birth from a mortal mother
and a transcendental father, his sudden coming and the violence
of his death in a tragic passion drama, just as Dionysus was torn
to pieces and was the progenitor of Greek tragedy, his magical
nature, his band of supporting women, his destiny to be the ruler
of the world as the son of the father God, and last but not least
the presence of Duchares a form of Dionysus as the God of Edom,
which attest to a secret tradition or inner mythology of Dionysus
in Jesus.

The winnowing fan is characteristic of both Tammuz and Dionysus
the dying gods of bread and wine who are combined in the two substances
of the eucharist. Luke 3:16 "John answered, saying unto them
all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I
cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose:
he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: Whose
fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and
will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn
with fire unquenchable."

Fig 12.2: The Miracle at Cana (Wilson I).

John 2:1 "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana
of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: And both Jesus
was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they
wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no
wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee?
mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants,
Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there
six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the
Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto
them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to
the brim. And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto
the governor of the feast. And they bare it. When the ruler of
the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not
whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the
governor of the feast called the bridegroom, And saith unto him,
Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when
men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept
the good wine until now. This beginning of miracles did Jesus
in Cana of Galilee, and manifested forth his glory; and his disciples
believed on him."

The Epiphany is a feast of the Christian calender celebrated
on January 6. The word comes from the Greek and means "manifestation,"
"appearance," or "revelation." The observance
originated in the Eastern church, and at first celebrated the
total revelation of God in Christ. Later it focused upon two events
of Jesus' ministry, his baptism (Mark 1:9-11) and the changing
of the water into wine at Cana of Galilee (John 2:1-12). Interestingly,
a similar festival of Dionysus, the wine god, was kept on this
day in the Aegean Islands and Anatolia. When the observance of
January 6 spread to the West, it became associated with the visit
of the Magi to the infant Jesus (Matthew 2:1-12), an event that
in the West originally formed part of the Christmas observance
(Grollier).

The date the Church celebrates the feast of the miracle of
Cana is 6 January, the feast of the Epiphany. Epiphania means
"appearance" in Greek and refers to the revelation of
the Lord's power. In pagan antiquity 6 January was the day celebrating
the revelation of a different divine power and wine miracles performed
by a different god: It was the feast of Dionysus, the Greek god
of wine: In fact the motif of the story, the transformation of
water into wine, is a typical motif of the Dionysus legend, in
which this miracle serves to highlight the god's epiphany. And
hence it is timed to coincide with the date of the feast of Dionysus,
from January 5 th to 6 th. In the ancient Church this affinity
was still understood, when . the 6 th of January was taken to
be the day that the marriage feast was celebrated at Cana. . Plainly
put, in the legend of the marriage at Cana Jesus reveals his divine
power in the same way that stories had told of the Greek god Dionysus
(Ranke-Heinmann 1992 81).

The 6th of January became for Christians the feast of the power
revelation (epiphany) of their God, thereby displacing the feast
of Dionysus's epiphany. As Bultmann says, "No doubt the story
[of the marriage feast at Cana] has been borrowed from pagan legends
and transferred to Jesus". On his feast day, Dionysus made
empty jars fill up with wine in his temple in Elis; and on the
island of Andros, wine flowed instead of water from a spring or
in his temple. Accordingly, the true miracle of the marriage feast
at Cana would not be the transformation by Jesus of water into
wine, but the transformation of Jesus into a sort of Christian
wine god (Ranke-Heinmann 1992 81). In fact the 'water into wine'
is also stated to be one of the first of the many bizarre miracles
of Dionysus (Briffault 3 130).

John took the miracle of the wine from a collection of Jesus'
miracle stories. . The first one was the wine miracle and is also
registered as such in John (2:11: "This, the first of his
signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee"). The second miracle
in the collection is the cure of the son of the official in Capernaum,
and it is likewise labeled in John as number two (4:54: "This
was now the second sign that Jesus did").

The Parable of new wine of the sacrificial bridegroom:
Mark 2:18 "And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees
used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples
of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not?
And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber
fast, while the bridegroom is with them? as long as they have
the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will
come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then
shall they fast in those days. No man also seweth a piece of new
cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up
taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse.And no man
putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst
the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be
marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles."

The parable of the vinyard owner: Mark 12:1 Thomas 65:
"A certain man planted a vineyard, and set an hedge about
it, and digged a place for the winefat, and built a tower, and
let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And at
the season he sent to the husbandmen a servant, that he might
receive from the husbandmen of the fruit of the vineyard. And
they caught him, and beat him, and sent him away empty. And again
he sent unto them another servant; and at him they cast stones,
and wounded him in the head, and sent him away shamefully handled.
And again he sent another; and him they killed, and many others;
beating some, and killing some. Having yet therefore one son,
his wellbeloved, he sent him also last unto them, saying, They
will reverence my son. But those husbandmen said among themselves,
This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance shall
be our's. And they took him, and killed him, and cast him out
of the vineyard. What shall therefore the lord of the vineyard
do? he will come and destroy the husbandmen, and will give the
vineyard unto others."

Q : Luke 7:31, Matt 11:16, [Thomas 47]: "And the Lord
said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation?
and to what are they like? They are like unto children sitting
in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We
have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to
you, and ye have not wept. For John the Baptist came neither eating
bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son
of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous
man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But
wisdom is justified of all her children."

This Nazirite or possibly Essene position of John regarding
wine is healded in his birth Luke 1:15 "For he shall be great
in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong
drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his
mother's womb." The contrasts declared by Jesus from John's
teaching show such considerations do not apply to Jesus.

Thomas 13: Jesus said to his disciples, "Compare me to
someone and tell me whom I am like." Simon Peter said to
him, "You are like a righteous angel." Matthew said
to him, "You are like a wise philosopher." Thomas said
to him, "Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom
you are like." Jesus said, "I am not your master.
Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the bubbling
spring which I have measured out." And he took him and
withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his
companions, they asked him, "What did Jesus say to you?"
Thomas said to them, "If I tell you one of the things I which
he told me, you will pick up stones and I throw them at me; a
fire will come out of the stones and burn you up."

Thomas 28: Jesus said, "I took my place in the midst of
the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found all of
them intoxicated; found none of them thirsty. And my soul
became afflicted for the sons of men, because they are blind in
their hearts and do not have sight; for empty they came into the
world, and empty too they seek to leave the world. But for the
moment they are intoxicated. When they shake off their wine, then
they will repent."

Thomas 40: Jesus said, "A grapevine has been planted outside
of the father, but being unsound, it will be pulled up by its
roots and destroyed. "

Like many other Gods including Ba'al of Canaan, Yahweh smoothed
the troubled waters of chaos. However Dionysus is specifically
a god of the sea, who miraculously turned pirates into dolphins.
Jesus is likewise the fisher of men who not only calms the troubled
waters but even walks upon them:

Mark 4:37 "And there arose a great storm of wind, and
the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he
was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they
awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace,
be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm."
A similar story is told about Jewish boy in the Talmus (Ranke-Heinmann
1992 95).

Mark 6:48 "And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the
wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the
night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have
passed by them. But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they
supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out."

It is notable that the latter event came just after the episode
of feeding the five thousand: 6:41 "And when he had taken
the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and
blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples
to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.
And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up twelve
baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. And they that
did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men."

This event can be seen as a massive eucharist of breaking small
portions of bread and feeding the flock with good tidings of the
Kingdom of God. However, as Spong (1994 195) notes, the link between
the loaves, and fishes and walking on the water also falls in
the shadow of second Isaiah 51:10 Art thou not it which hath dried
the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths
of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? Therefore the
redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto
Zion; . The captive exile hasteneth that he may be loosed, and
that he should not die in the pit, nor that his bread should fail.
But I am the Lord thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared:
The Lord of hosts is his name." This reference can be considered
in relation to the Dionysian references of Isaiah 63.

Fig 12.3: The Last Supper - Leonardo da Vinci

12.3 The Body and Blood of the Eucharist

The passover meals in the synoptics and John differ. According
to the synoptics , just before his death Jesus celebrated the
passover seder with his disciples, and during the meal he instituted
the Eucharist. The latter on the one hand belongs to the tradition
of the seder, but on the other, as the meal of the "new covenant,"
is meant to replace the Passover meal of the "old covenant."
The Passover meal is seen by the Synoptics as it already had been
in Paul very early. Jesus gives himself, his flesh and blood,
as a meal:

1 Corinthians 11:23 "For I have received of the Lord that
which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same
night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given
thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which
is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. After the same
manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This
cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye
drink it, in remembrance of me." The apocalyptic purpose
of the eucharist is then revealed "For as often as ye eat
this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till
he come."

John Spong (1994 204) notes the four key ritual stages: took,
blessed (gave thanks), broke and gave, which are repeated in all
but John where he merely took and gave.

The Last Supper: Mark 14:22 "And as they did eat, Jesus
took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said,
Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had
given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And
he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which
is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more
of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in
the kingdom of God."

According to John, on the other hand, Jesus never spoke the
words instituting the Eucharist before his death. Rather, Jesus
himself is the slaughtered paschal lamb. Jesus could not celebrate
the Passover seder as the Last Supper, because by that time he
was already dead.

Although the Last Supper in John is a pre-Passover non-Eucharist
meal, the Jesus is nevertheless the 'bread of heaven' as a greater
mana and the 'true vine' and exhorts in the Synagoge of Capernaum
to eat his flesh and drink his blood: John 6:53 Then Jesus said
unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the
flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life
in you. Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath
eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my
flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so
he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread
which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna,
and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.

John 15:1 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the
husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh
away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that
it may bring forth more fruit. Abide in me, and I in you. As the
branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine;
no more can ye, except ye abide in me."

The bread and wine are also blessed in the Jewish Passover,
but this is a family affair, wheras the Christian Communion in
the tradition of the Last Supper had only men, like the sacred
repasts of the Essene new covenant.

Passover is an ancient Jewish feast, but its origins are unknown.
It was one of the three greatest Jewish festivals, the so-called
pilgrimage festivals, namely, Passover, Shavuoth (Pentecost, fifty
days after Passover), and Succoth, the feast of Tabernacles (first
half of October). Passover was celebrated among the Jews in memory
of their divine rescue during the exodus from Egypt (Exodus 12).
God spared every house whose doorposts were marked with the blood
of a lamb. In all other houses he killed the first-born, both
of humans and of animals . Thus blood protected man and beast
from being killed. Blood has a redemptive effect. Christianity
presses this macabre thought to its macabre limit with the theological
interpretation of Jesus' death.

The Jewish Kiddush blessing
at the Sabbath,
or the eve of a major festival, has close and obvious correspondence
to the blessing of the Eucharist:

Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who
creates the fruit of the vine .
Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who brings
forth bread from the earth.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, through your goodness
we have this wine to offer, fruit of the vine and work of human
hands .
Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, through your goodness
we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human
hands have made.

Passover was celebrated on the 14th and 15th of Nisan, the
month when spring began. The months began with the new moon. The
first day after the evening when, following the new moon, a bit
of the crescent moon was visible once again was the first day
of the month. Thus Passover was always celebrated under a full
moon. . The Jewish day began, not as it does with us, at midnight,
but in the evening, at dusk. The new day was there when the first
stars could be seen. This new day was said to have "shone
forth." Hence, Passover, too, lasted from evening to evening.
By our system of reckoning, which measures days from midnight
to midnight, the Passover meal took place on the "eve"
of Passover.

Damascus Rule: "Whenever as many as ten shall gather together
for a banquet, they shall take their seats in order of precedence,
nd the priest and the messiah shall preside. The company may not
touch the bread and the wine till the priest has blessed them
and taken some - after which the Messiah first takes some, then
the others in order of rank."

Luke 22:24 "And there was also a strife among them, which
of them should be accounted the greatest. And he said unto them,
The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they
that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors. But
ye shall not be so: but he that is greatest among you, let him
be as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve.
For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth?
is not he that sitteth at meat? but I am among you as he that
serveth."

Bultmann assumes that the primitive Christian "meals weren't
really cultic celebrations, but an expression and bond of fellowship
in the sense of Jewish tradition and the historical Jesus himself.
They were transformed into sacramental celebrations by Hellenistic
Christianity"(Theologie des Neuen Testament 1951, P. 149).
This of course is represented by some researchers as sourcing
from the Pauline heresy. However it is only a small movement of
position from the celebration of the expected return of the Lord
with bread and wine to a full-blooded Dionysian feast - of the
flesh and blood of the resurrecting redeemer. John has many quite
Essene sayings in his vision of light and dark and still we find
this carnivorous motif.

Fig 12.5: The Last Supper - Church of the Nativity
Bethlehem (Phaidon)

The Didache or Doctrine of the Two Ways was initially an early
Christian text, but reflects strongly the Manual of Discipline.
You have the baptism . and you have the sacred repast, which involves
broken bread and a cup of wine: "We give thanks to thee,
our Father, for the Holy Vine of David thy child . and concerning
the broken bread: We give thee thanks, our Father, for the life
and knowledge which thou didst make known to us through Jesus
thy child" (Didache, IX, LLC, The Apostolic Fathers, P. 323).
The Christian atonement is missing here and although attributed
to Jesus may thus have arisen later. Also known as the Teaching
of the Twelve Apostles, this work was composed in the first half
of the 2nd century. The Didache makes no reference to the death
of Jesus and has no notion of a divine, sacramental food.

The Ebionites (deserving poor) an ancient Jewish Christian
sect closely associated with Jesus' brother James who was the
first bishop of Jerusalem interpreted the Eucharist as a memorial
of Jesus, substituting a chalice of water for the chalice of blood.
They did not view Jesus' death as a bloody act of atonement. Irenaeus
observed that in denying the virgin birth - the power of the most
high "they deny the heavenly wine and wish to know nought
but the water of this world" (Ranke-Heinemann 1992 173, Wilson
I 154, Grollier). The Ebionites followed the Elchasaite vision
of the Christ as the recurrent 'secret Adam' a supernatural figure
which embued Jesus at his baptism (adoptionist) and left him at
the crucifixion.

The adherents of Mithraism gathered at cultic meals, which
so closely resembled the Christian Eucharist that Justin (d. ca.
165), for example, considered them a diabolical imitation: "The
Apostles in their memoirs, which are called Gospels, have handed
down what Jesus taught them to do; that He took bread and, after
giving thanks, said: 'Do this in remembrance of Me; this is my
body.' In like manner, he took also the chalice, gave thanks,
and said: 'This is my blood'; . The evil demons, in imitation
of this, ordered the same thing to be performed in the Mythraic
mysteries" (1 Apology 66). Tertullian (d. after 220) found
it diabolical that the followers of Mithra "at the idolatrous
goings-on and in so malicious a fashion put into words even the
actions by which the sacraments of Christ are performed"
(De praescriptione haereticorum 40). The followers of Mithra were
in no way imitating the Christian Eucharist; it was the other
way around (Ranke-Heinmann 1992 273).

Fig 12.6: Christos
Helios (Wilson I)

12.4 Darkening the Sun of Righteousness

Jesus was called the Sun of Righteousness, the Light to the
gentiles. Dionysus is the dark side of the sun, opposite Apollo
at Delphi, the tragic aspect of Jesus' passion. Mark 15:33 "And
when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole
land until the ninth hour." This apparent quotation of a
solar eclipse is mythical because passover is on the full moon.

Jesus identification with Mithra including his birth date being
attached to the Julian winter solstice is further indication of
his link with the sun.

"The people say the sun dances on this day [Easter morning]
in joy for a risen Saviour. Old Barbara Macphie at Dreimsdale
saw this once, but only once, in her long life. And the good woman,
of high natural intelligence, described in poetic language and
with religious fervour what she saw or believed she saw from the
summit of Benmore: 'The glorious gold- bright sun was after rising
on the crests of the great hills, and it was changing colour -
green, purple, red, blood-red, white, intense white, and gold-white,
like the glory of God of the elements to the children of men.
It was dancing up and down in exultation at the joyous resurrection
of the beloved Saviour of victory.' To be thus privileged, a person
must ascend to the top of the highest hill before sunrise, and
believe that the God who makes the small blade of grass to grow
is the same God who makes the large, massive sun to move"
(Carmichael, Alexander "Carmina Gadelica", Floris 1994)

12.5 Dining with the Risen Christ

John Spong (1994 198-209) notes that the sacred meal is not
just a ritual instituted by the living Jesus but is also the central
motif in the manifestation of the resurrected Christ in which
"their eyes were opened" just as did Adam and Eve when
they ate the forbidden fruit: Luke 24:30 "And it came to
pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed
it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and
they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. . And they
rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the
eleven gathered together, . And they told what things were done
in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread."

Luke also conveys the sacred meal as a central motif in the
coming Kingdom: 22:28 "Ye are they which have continued with
me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my
Father hath appointed unto me; That ye may eat and drink at my
table in my kingdom".

Spong comments as follows (1994 205): "Luke was saying,
it seems to me that eating and drinking at the Lord's table was
part of what it meant to be in the Kingdom of God. That in turn
seems to suggest that in the act of eating and drinking in the
name of the Lord, here and now, we are sharing a foretaste of
that kingdom. Perhaps in such a setting our eyes might well "be
opened" to behold the one ."

Fig 12.7: The Supper at Emmaus - Caravaggio (Hendy
127)

The epilogue to John likewise shows Jesus revealed by sharing
the sacred meal: 21:12 "Jesus saith unto them, Come and dine.
And none of the disciples durst ask him, Who art thou? knowing
that it was the Lord. Jesus then cometh, and taketh bread, and
giveth them, and fish likewise. This is now the third time that
Jesus shewed himself to his disciples, after that he was risen
from the dead." Spong (1992) suggests the siting of htis
event in Galilee is consistent with his mission and manifestation
being primarily there.

In Acts likewise, the link between the sacrifice of the accursed
and experiencing the resurrected Christ through eating and drinking
the sacred substance with the redeemer is the central key : 10:39
"And we are witnesses of all things which he did both in
the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged
on a tree: Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly;
Not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before God, even
to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead."

12.6 The Liberator

In Acts 9:5 we find a remark that Jesus is supposed to have
made to Paul as he lay on the ground: "It hurts you to kick
against the pricks". This is a quotation from The Bacchae
by Euripides (d. 406 B.C.). It's no surprise to find a quotation
from ancient literature; the only peculiar thing is that Jesus
should quote a Greek proverb to Paul while speaking Aramaic ("in
the Hebrew language"). But the really strange thing is that
with both Jesus and Euripides we have the same "familiar
quotation" and the same situation. In both cases we have
a conversation between a persecuted god and his persecutor. In
Euripides, the persecuted god is Dionysus, and his persecutor
is Pentheus, king of Thebes. Just like Jesus, Dionysus calls his
persecutor to account: "You disregard my words of warning
. and kick against necessity [literally'against the goads'] a
man defying god". . Jesus even uses the same plural form
of the noun (kentra) that Euripides needs for the meter of his
line (Ranke-Heinmann 1992 163).

In 1 Corinthians 15:8 Paul once again speaks of his encounter
with the risen Christ. This passage is usually translated as,
"Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to
me. . He means that something happened in which the presence of
the Revealer was experienced existentially. This experience means
more than an "appearance," more than a miraculous seeing
and hearing. There is no way to define such perception and knowledge,
which transcend every element of the senses, which embrace all
of existence. But it's certain that such an encounter with Jesus,
as Paul describes it, has nothing in common with the Damascus
Show in Acts. In Galatians 1:15 Paul describes the moment with
the words "when he . was pleased to reveal his Son to me".

The Acts of the apostles were mighty
. when they prayed, there was an earthquake (4:31). When necessary,
it could quake again, so as to free them from their chains and
open their prison doors: "But around midnight Paul and Silas
were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were
listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake,
so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately
all the doors were opened and everyone's fetters were unfastened"
(16:25-26). The scene continues as in The Bacchae (which Jesus
had already quoted on the occasion of Paul's conversion). Euripides
writes of the maenads who were being kept in the city's prison:
"The chains on their legs snapped apart / by themselves.
Untouched by any human hand, / the doors swung wide, opening of
their own accord" (Euripides, The Bacchae, in Euripides V,
11. 447-48; p. 192; cf 11. 497-98).(Ranke-Heinmann 1992 169).

The Dialogue of the Saviour conveys an image of the destruction
of womanhood clearly echoing the birth of Dionysus in the destruction
of Semele by Zeus' bolt of lightning, revealing himself to her
as he did to Hera: Matthew said: "Destroy the works of womanhood"
. The Lord said ."Now a true word is coming forth from the
Father [to the abyss] in silence with a [flash of lightning] giving
birth] (Robinson 254).

The key reference to the second coming, in which Christ appears
in glory is Revelation 19:11-16 where 'I saw heaven opened . he
was clothed in a vesture dipped in blood . out of his mouth goeth
a sharp sword . he treadeth the winepress'. This reference is
derived from a passage of Isaiah 63:1-4 'Who is this that cometh
from Edom that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness
of his strength? . I have trodden the winepress alone . their
blood shall be scattered on my garments . and the year of my redeemed
has come'.

Both of these references are exclusively Dionysian in character,
both in the winepress and the blood of vengeance of the redeemer
as we shall see. The reference to Edom also indicates a specific
knowledge of the Nabatean Duchares, God of Gaia who was a form
of Dionysus.

The territory of the desert round Machaerus where John baptised
and was imprisoned is right on the border with Nabatea whose exampansion
had pushed many of the Idumeans further west into sourthern Judea.
Herod was of Idumean descent. John
the Baptist appears to have been sacrificed as a surrogate
king for Herod at a feast after challenging his marriage to Herodias.
The cast-off wife was the daughter of King Aretas IV of Nabatea.

The Lexicon Talmudicum and Talmud babli Sanhedrin 106b, 43a,
51a and the Toldoth Jeshu states (Graves 1946 6, 1953 23, 288):
Commentators refer to Jeshu-ha-Notzri [Jesus of Nazareth] by mention
of the wicked kingdom of Edom, since that was his nation... he
was hanged on a Passover eve... He was near to the kingdom [genealogically].
Likewise the Qur'an refers to Jesus as Isa after Esau the red
man of Edom. It thus appears that both the Jews and the Arabs
recognised the Edomite character of Jesus' mission in a way not
understood by Christians themselves.

Balaam the lame was 33 years old when Pintias the Robber [Pontius
Pilate] killed him... They say that his mother was descended from
princes and rulers but consorted with carpenters.

He was lamed while trying to fly [as were Jacob and Ba'alam].

The Mishnah (Baraitha and Tosefta) note the following passages
highlighting the tension between conventional Jews and Jesus'
followers (Wilson I 62-4): "It has been taught: On the eve
of the Passover they hanged Yeshu ... because he practised sorcery
and enticed and led Israel astray ... Our Rabbis taught Yeshu
had five disciples Mattai, Nakkai, Netzer, Buni, and Todah.

Rabbi Elizah ben Damah is cited asking that Jacob came to heal
him in the name of Yeshu[a] ben Pantera. He died being forbidden
to do so.
A disciple of Yeshu the Nazarene is cited in Sepphoris capital
of Galilee saying "It is written in your Torah 'Thou shalt
not bring the hire of a harlot ...' How about making it a privy
for the high priest? Thus did Yeshu ... teach me 'For the hire
of a harlot hath she gathered them, And unto the hire of a harlot
shall they return', from the place of filth they come, and unto
the place of filth they go"

The Jewish citing of Jesus as son of a Roman 'Pantera' [panther]
has been cited as another term of derision insinuating Dionysian
heritage but a Roman gravestone has been found in Bingerbrück
Germany for Julius Abdes Pantera an archer of Sidon, dating from
the appropriate early Imperial period.

Another Sanhedrin entry 103a by Rabbi Hisda comments on Psalm
91:10 "There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any
plague come nigh thy dwelling" that "Thou shalt have
neither a son nor a disciple who will publicly let his food burn
(forfeit his salvation in a public display) like did Jesus the
Nazarene". Rabbi Abbahu taught "If a man say unto thee
'I am God' he lieth; if he saith 'I am the Son of Man' he will
live to rue his words; and if he saith 'I ascend into Heaven'
he will not bring to pass that which he saith". These early
entries portray an antagonism which in itself explains the attitude
in the gospels is not merely anti-Jewish polemic but genuinely
records a spiritual tension that arose from the Crucifixion.

Fig 12.9: The Blood of the Redeemer Giovanni Belinni
(Hendy 55).

In the Stabat Mater hymn to Mary it says: "Make me drunk
with the cross and blood of your son" The Bishop of Aachen
comments: "Upon meeting the first person in the morning,
I see the Blood of the Redeemer flowing down on him, and I'll
know then that we are the redeemed" (Ranke-Heinmann 1992
274-5).

Saint Catherine of Siena (d. 1380) often had visions of blood
when the priest raised the chalice during mass. She would see
Christ's blood spilling over the altar. Of all drinks she preferred
red vinegar, because it reminded her "of the blissfull suffering
of Jesus. ' When the host was broken before her eyes, she saw
it turn blood red. Upon taking communion she tasted blood in her
mouth and had the sense "of receiving Christ, very small
and bloody." For Catherine, the wine in the Eucharist was
more important than the bread, because it expressed better the
sacrificing of a victim. For this reason she always wanted to
drink from the chalice at mass.

12.8 Yahweh by Jove!

Although revulsion at the head of Zeus in the Temple of Jerusalem
was a cause of the Maccabean uprising, Yahweh shares an affinity
with Jove viz Zeus as an ancient weather god of the thunderbolt
which is more ancient than identification with any planet. Such
an affinity in the minds of the common people in folk festivals
continued to underly the new view of Yahweh brought back from
the exile. Jerusalem, Absalom and Solomon share a root, common
to the Near East from Danaan Greece and Crete (Salmoneus) through
the Phoenicians (Selim) to the Assyrians (Salman), which is usually
associated with peace - shalom, just as does Aphrodite's dove,
appears to represent the sacred king Salmah as the seasonal sun
(Graves 1948 332).The Greeks consistently described the rites
and worship of the Jewish god as forms of the worship of Zeus
Sabazius or Dionysius as the ancient barley god in the Passover
and Dionysus Liber god of wine in Tabernacles. Plutarch notes
barley sheaves, new wine, torch dances until cock crow, libations,
animal sacrifices, and religious ecstasy, noting the prohibition
against pork parallels Adonis's killing by a boar. At the end
of Tabernacles the priests announced "Our forefathers in
this place turned their backs on the sanctuary of god and their
faces to the East, adoring the Sun; but we turn to God".
Dionysus as the darkened Sun is seasonally resurrected in his
solar aspect. Tacitus similarly comments "some maintain the
rites of the Jews were founded in honour of Dionysus" (Graves
1948 335-6).

The Edomite Dionysus of Revelation

This personage is clearly referred to in Isaiah 63:1 "Who
is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah?
this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness
of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.
Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like
him that treadeth in the winefat? I have trodden the winepress
alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread
them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood
shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.
For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my
redeemed is come".

We thus see immediately that the terrible Lord of the apocalypse,
the Christ of the second coming is standing directly in this Dionysian
tradition in Revelation 19:13: "And he was clothed with a
vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses,
clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth
a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he
shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress
of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his
vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings, and Lord
of Lords".

Both of these references are exclusively Dionysian in character,
both in the winepress and the blood of vengeance of the redeemer
as we shall see. The reference to Edom also indicates a specific
knowledge of the Nabatean Dionysus Dhu Shara.

This type of language was also central to the earliest aspects
of Christianity even before the four gospels we use for our main
picture of Jesus were ever written. The earliest and most ancient
invocation to Jesus in Christianity is believed to be "Jesus
is Lord", and more specifically "Come Lord Jesus."
(Spong 1994 144). This is precisely the maranatha - "The
Bridegroom cometh".

This same language has always been central to the rites of
Dionysus. In Elis a dancing chorus of women invoked the god with
the words: "Come, Lord Dionysus". He is described as
"the god who comes, the god of epiphany, whose appearance
is far more urgent, far more compelling than that of any other
god". (Otto W).